PC Mall (MALL), Dell (DELL), HP (HPQ) Show PC Sales Still Humming

The announcement by industry commentators that the PC is basically dead and going the way of the dinosaurs is extremely premature, and not true, as recent quarterly results from PC Mall (NASDAQ:MALL), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and HP (NYSE:HPQ) confirm.

Hot markets like tablets and smartphones were cited as the reason PCs are now dying, but anyone who has to produce content knows that's not the case, and if the PC ever really does die, the new devices will have to be improved vastly to make that a reality.

It could happen, but it'll be years before it does, if ever.

For the most part, the newest, hot devices are content viewers not content creators. The market for them will skyrocket for those wanting to consume content on the go, but desktops and laptops will continue to be the screen of choice for those needing to do real work.

PC sales will continue to grow, but it will be at a slower pace, especially with those who were only using them for viewing content. In that regard, those markets have no reason to have a desktop or laptop.

For now, tablets sales will continue to expand, but as a ancillary screen for now, as far as those who need to do work on their computers.

HP (NYSE:HPQ), Dell (Nasdaq:DELL), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) and PC Cannibalization

Concerns over the effects of the inevitable cannibalization of PCs by tablets has generated a lot of concern for a number of tech companies, including HP (NYSE:HPQ), Dell (Nasdaq:DELL), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) and Intel (Nasdaq:INTC).

If the quarterly report has any bearing on how other companies will fare, it's possible the effects of the drop in personal computer sales may not be as hard on companies as envisioned.

For Intel, their sales related to personal computers were soft for the quarter, but they more than made up for that on the server side.

The news that businesses are acquiring computers after holding off during the worst part of the ongoing recession, also is helping companies offset tablets sales.

Gartner said, "The bright side of the PC market during the fourth quarter of 2010 was a steady growth in the professional market driven by replacement purchases. However, the PC market will face challenges going forward with more intensified competition among consumer spending."

Each company will have to be viewed individually as to how much exposure they have to personal computers and how quickly they responded to expand to other products and segments.

So far other segments appear to be making up for lackluster personal computer sales, and that is good news for shareholders and investors.

Oracle's (Nasdaq:ORCL) Ellison Disses HP (NYSE:HPQ)

Oracle's (Nasdaq:ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison took advantage of another strong quarter to diss rivals Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and IBM (NYSE:IBM), especially targeting HP, who Ellison considered "vulnerable" to losing market share to Oracle.

Ellison is touting the performance of their Exadata pipeline, which he says has risen from $1.5 billion to $2 billion just since last quarter.

"In data warehousing it's not unusual for our Exadata to be 10 times faster than the competition," Ellison said, citing the "slow and expensive" high-end servers offered by HP, which is the segment Exadata competes in.

"We think that Exadata will be a nice turbo-charger for our overall database business," Ellison concluded.

He asserts HP is very vulnerable to losing market share to Oracle in the high-end server market, and expects to see strong sales for Exadata going forward.

The problem for Oracle appears to be either demand for Exadata being so strong they are having trouble supplying it, or they are experiencing problems in the supply chain itself, which would signify they haven't worked the problems out that came with their acquisition of Sun.